Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/360038
www.postmagazine.com 20 POST AUGUST 2014 The project was done on Autodesk Flame Premium (which includes Lustre for color). NICE SHOES GETS VISUAL WITH BEYONCE When Beyoncé wanted to surprise fans (and shut down iTunes) with the debut of The Visual Album, a full-length album launched simultaneously with 14 music videos, she also surprised the team at Nice Shoes, a color grading and fi nishing studio in New York City with a request to make her new visual album "fl awless." According to Vin Roma, head of VFX/ visual eff ects artist at Nice Shoes, "We didn't even know when it was going to debut! We all contributed to Heaven, Blue, Flawless, Rocket, Blow, and one of our colorists, Ron Sudul, worked on Partition, which is nominated for a few MTV VMAs." Roma says the visual eff ects and color teams — including colorists Sudul and Lenny Mastrandrea, and VFX artists Jason Farber, Russ Bigsby, Kevan Lee and Roma himself — worked extensively on Beyoncé's The Visual Album, with a three-week schedule, and getting in a new video every day or every other day. "We'd be still working on the previous batch while getting looks set on new vid- eos," he recalls. "Once the colorists had approval, shots went to the Flame team for VFX work." Explaining that it was important for each video to have its own unique look because they were all being released simultaneously, Roma describes Blow as "having a '70s feel to it," while Rocket was "much softer, but still contrast- ing. Ron achieved an interesting look, giving it a full range of values while still keeping it in a soft feel. Nothing is really white and nothing is really black. Lenny brought a diff erent look to Blue, which was really vibrant and natural, not as stylized as the other videos." According to Roma, he relied on his fellow visual eff ects artists Bigsby, Far- ber, and Lee more than any toolset, as well as the rest of the Nice Shoes art- ists, but says, "because of the workfl ow we have in place, we're able to seam- lessly collaborate between VFX artists working in Flame and colorists working on Baselight." ATABOY'S ANIMATED MOJO The swamp rock blues duo The Peach Kings relied on the talents of New York- based design and animation studio Ataboy (http://ataboystudios.com) to create a music video representing the title track of their new EP Mojo Thunder. The graphic novel-inspired animated video tells a hypnotic tale of vice and voodoo, and explores how cycles of abuse and pain can trigger self-destruc- tive behavior. According to Vikkal Parikh, owner and creative director of Ataboy, the team was asked to think "swamp, dark and psyche- delic." They took that direction and craft- ed a sexy, graphic and engrossing visual story. Ataboy directors Kris Merc and Aggressive shot Cris Cab's Loves Me Not video against a greenscreen with a Red Epic camera. Nice Shoes contributed Flame VFX for Beyonce's Flawless music video. Ataboy created this animated video for The Peach Kings.